Which is splendid! Now, how is the University of Cambridge getting on with their long-delayed pool at West Cambridge?
***Well doesn’t this look wonderful!***
Above – Green and Open Space Types (Cambridge & Fringe) 2025, p109
Note the table of priority projects below.
Above – a screen grab of p99 of the draft infrastructure delivery plan
With *sixty* new badminton courts in the pipeline we’d better ensure that a couple of them are of beyond Olympic standard quality because there are going to be a lot of people playing it! Actually, the headlines inevitably miss out some really important paragraphs which should be front-and-centre in all of this – in particular the calls from the charity Make Space For Girls which is now making its presence felt locally in lobbying for better facilities designed with and for teenage girls, a cohort all too often ignored. (Mindful also of the welcome announcements earlier from ministers about the funding and policy responses to the scourge of violence against women and girls.
The Draft Infrastructure Plan for Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire – part of the new local plan evidence base that the Cambridge Growth Company will also be working with.
“Why didn’t we hear about this before?”
Not many of you may have noticed this document – it was one of the most recent ones added to the list of appendices to the current consultation having only been signed off in late November 2025.
(Go to the document library here, scroll down to Infrastructure heading, and click on “Draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan Infrastructure Delivery Plan (2025)” <<– If that link doesn’t work first time around. These things have a habit of going walkies down a different file path.
Swimming pools – we lack enough public ones for our rapidly-growing population
My general approach to the central-government-mandated rapid growth for Cambridge (whether Michael Gove’s one in 2023/24 – where is he these days? He’s been ***too quiet for too long!***, or the current one being led by Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook), is that they could end up with the negative headlines at Northstowe on a much wider scale with even fewer of the benefits.
Cambridge University’s annual deficit
Obviously the last thing in the world the ancient institution needs is some chap from ‘town’ reminding them of their longstanding swimming pool obligation given their ongoing annual deficit which hit the headlines last year. and which it still has issues over according to the T.H.E. Supplement. For those of you who really want to dig into the numbers, you can read Cambridge University’s annual report for 2025 here.
Above – University of Cambridge Annual Report and Financial Statements 2025
As some of you may have picked up earlier, the new indoor swimming pool is listed as one of the University’s sporting priorities on infrastructure.
I’ve been chasing the University of Cambridge via Cambridge City Council for years on this. Here’s a blogpost from July 2021 – over four years ago, which starts with the announcement in 2009 that a new sports centre with Olympic-sized swimming pool was going to be built in West Cambridge.
In what in hindsight was a detailed blogpost, I referred councillors to their joint indoor sports facilities strategy 2015-31. Mindful that we’re over a decade since its commencement.
Above – from p163 of the Cambridge & South Cambridgeshire Indoor Sports Facilities Strategy 2015-31
Are the people of the city and district within their right to ask what additional facilities ***on top of these*** will be needed for the emerging local plan (currently out to consultation) and furthermore what additional requirements will be created by Peter Freeman’s recommendations from the Cambridge Growth Company?
Other locations for swimming pools outside of Cambridge.
The citizens of Cambourne are long overdue their own swimming pool as sporting, leisure, and civic infrastructure really has not kept pace with population growth. And don’t even get me started on the failures of transport infrastructure!
The scale of the challenge for South Cambridgeshire is significant.
“There are 20 pools in South Cambridgeshire across 19 sites, with only 3 community pay and play swimming pools in South Cambridgeshire.
“In order to meet future demands, investment will be required tomaintain and modernise existing facilities and to expand the range of provision in areas experiencing growth.”
(IDP (2025) p96)
The three community pools are at Impington, Melbourn, and Sawston.
“A total of 2,420 sqm or 45 lanes of swimming pool will be needed and will cost £50,489,099. It has been anticipated that new swimming pools will be located where demand is anticipated to increase most, such as large strategic sites, including Perse School, Genome Campus, Cambourne (Cambourne West and Bourn Airfield),Eddington, Northstowe and Waterbeach.”
(IDP (2025) p97)
It speaks volumes that the first pools completed are the ones with the least community access – i.e. at The Perse and the Genome Campus.
Where to locate a mega-swimming pool and leisure centre
Ultimately that will be a decision for Peter Freeman and team I guess.
“The Assessment also supports the need for a 50m regional swimming pool in a location which serves the north, north-east and east of the city. Co-locating a significant amount of water space in one location would benefit from co-location with other sports facilities of a similar regional scale. This provides a sustainable, accessible offer for communities, as well as being the most effective operationally.”
My prediction is that they can either go for the existing proposal of the new Cambridge Rowing Lake (see below from the Cambridge Sports Lake Trust).
The reason being Trinity College Cambridge’s financiers seem to have incorporated the proposals into their as yet speculative attempt to expand the Cambridge Science Park over the A14.
Above – from Cambridge Science Park North – submission to the emerging local plan 2025
The only other sites I can think of are the areas of land not included in the emerging local plan, but ones that could be incorporated into Peter Freeman’s Cambridge Growth Company Plans (which will be *in addition to* the current proposals. And this I think will come as a huge shock to people when they see the maps).
Using the Greater Cambridge Water Management Study 2021-29 by Stantec here, somewhere near the airport site (bottom-centre of the map) seems the most likely alternative to me.
Above – Greater Cambridge Water Management Study 2021-29 by Stantec, p14
Given the demand for water and the need to mitigate for flooding, an outdoor rowing lake and other features make for an ideal flood barrier in the event of very heavy downpours the likes of which have become more intense with the climate emergency. (Don’t ask me how they intend to build all those homes without releasing so much as a molecule of methane or CO2!)
At the same time, a facility of that size will need an extensive active travel and electrified public transport network to enable people to use it. And this is something that Mr Freeman and team will have to consider when it comes to housing density types. The other option they have is incorporating Cambridge United Football Club in such a facility – mindful of the club’s recent announcement in November 2025. (Ironically Teversham was suggested as a possible new location back in the early 1990s!)
This really is time to get your maps out time!
This is because we have multiple ideas that are now on the table with public transport, and we also have to start identifying what facilities are needed where, and how they will all be linked up.
Above – Cambs Sustainable Travel Alliance (2025) by Josh Grantham
How might a Tram Orbital help facilitate passengers to a regional-tier sports and leisure complex? Mindful of East Cambs MP Charlotte Cane’s speech in Parliament stating that the four railway stations for Cambridge (two current, one nearly complete, one recently announced) have the making of a new metro network for the city.
Personally I think it’s possible to have all of the proposed – the Rail Future East proposals for suburban rail across Cambridgeshire, Colin Harris’s Connect Cambridge, and Josh Grantham’s tram orbital. The reason being that the scale of behaviour change needed to get a critical mass of people out of their cars will be huge – and we can only do so if there is a comprehensive alternative to the motor car. When I think of old European cities that have extensive tram and public transport networks yet are small in size, Graz in Austria comes to mind. Have a look at their tram map here, and their services here. The population of the city is just over 300,000. Oh – and if we could have their city hall design that would be splendid too!
Above – Cambridge City Council’s consultants rejected my suggestion to change Cambridge Guildhall’s front to something like this in Graz, Austria
But that’s another reminder of another outstanding issue on the future of our city. How should our expanded city be governed?
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